Just a Little Stressed
by Sand-wolf579
Summary: Even after they save the world Dakota still feels slightly stressed and worried. Cavendish is worried too, but for a different reason. *Spoilers for Where's Milo?*


Dakota leaned back on the couch in their apartment. It felt good to just sit down and relax after a long day. He was actually glad that they were still on pistachio duty after this mission, because he didn't think he could handle doing all the tougher stuff that Brick and Savannah did every single day. Dakota had a hard enough time protecting pistachios...and they couldn't even do _that_ right.

Dakota sighed and opened a bag of chips that he had grabbed from the kitchen earlier. If sentient killer pistachio men was going to be the outcome of saving the pistachio, then Dakota thought that they should just let the nut go extinct. It just wasn't worth it.

Dakota grabbed a handful of chips from the bag and tossed them into his mouth. He knew that they really shouldn't let the pistachio go extinct. After all, a living thing was a living thing, and all living things deserved to, well, live. And Dakota knew that tomorrow they would be right back to trying to save the pistachio, but at that moment he really didn't want to.

It was kind of hard to want to save something that had tried to kill them just a few hours before.

Dakota took another handful of chips. He felt like he shouldn't take this whole thing so seriously. Part of their time travel training had been to prepare them for any dangers they might face, and being threatened by the thing you were trying to protect had definitely been an option. The thing was, Dakota wasn't all that upset about he and his partner being threatened. They were adults and trained professionals. They could take care of themselves.

The nutjobs had crossed a line when they had threatened those kids though.

They were just _kids_. It was a mistake that any of them had gotten involved in the whole mess in the first place. A part of Dakota was actually glad that Milo and his friends had been there to help, because they really couldn't have been able to stop the pistachio freaks without them. But Dakota really liked that Milo kid, and if anything had happened to him or any of the other kids…

Dakota furrowed his brow and continued to munch on his snack. He knew that he would never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to Milo. The whole sentient pistachio mess had happened because of them. It would have been all their fault if something had happened to that kid, or if something happened to him in the future.

Dakota couldn't forget about just how often he and Cavendish ran into the kid. It couldn't be a coincidence how often their paths crossed. Dakota knew that things just naturally went wrong around the kid, so he was probably used to it by now. The thing was, things just naturally went wrong with time travel as well. It was a dangerous and unpredictable business. If you threw the dangers of time travel and Murphy's law together, it was just _asking_ for trouble. And if Milo ever got hurt because of that trouble…

Dakota reached his hand into the bag of chips again and blinked when all he felt was a couple of crumbs.

"What?" Dakota flipped the bag upside down and just the little chip dust came out. "Aw, come on." Stupid chip and snack companies. They always only filled the bags halfway, the cheats. It really shouldn't be allowed.

Dakota forced himself to his feet and groaned. Everything hurt. He was _definitely_ going to be feeling sore for the next few days. He guessed that he should just feel lucky that there weren't any major injuries. Just a bunch of scrapes and bruises, and maybe a sprain here or there. He just felt too sore to even think about how much worse it could have been.

Dakota went into the small kitchen of their apartment. He threw away the now empty bag of chips and began to search the cupboards for another. It wasn't that he felt hungry, because he didn't. Dakota just...he just needed to eat something. Maybe it would get him to think about something else that _wasn't_ how they had almost died that day. Maybe it would do something to ease the twisted feeling in his gut that had been lingering with him from the second they had laid eyes on the changed future.

"Dakota?" The man jumped to hear the sound of his name. He turned and stared with wide eyes at his partner. He had thought that the man had gone to sleep a couple of hours ago.

"Cavendish, what are you doing?" Dakota asked. The older man narrowed his eyes at him.

"I could ask you the same thing." Cavendish said. "It's the middle of the night. What are you doing still up?"

Dakota shrugged. "Looking for a midnight snack." He said honestly. For some reason Cavendish gave him a strange look when he said this. It wasn't the usual irritated glare that Dakota got whenever he snacked at an inappropriate time. This was more of an ' _I'm concerned about you'_ look. "What?" Dakota asked.

Cavendish eyed the two bags of chips and one candy bar wrapper that were in the trash. "Something tells me you've had enough." Cavendish said. He grabbed Dakota's arm, though not in an extremely harsh way. "Come on."

"What?" Dakota glanced around and found a half eaten box of cheap cookies on the counter. "Can't I just-" He reached for the treat, but Cavendish yanked him away before he could grab them.

"No, Dakota, you can not." Cavendish said sternly. "We are going to find you a healthier coping method."

"Huh?" Dakota stared at his partner. Cavendish just rolled his eyes.

"You stress eat." Cavendish said. "You said so yourself."

"Yeah, so?" Dakota really didn't think it was that big of a deal.

"So it's not good for you." Cavendish dragged Dakota back to the couch and sat down, forcing Dakota to sit next to him.

"Look, it's not that big a deal." Dakota said. "It's just this thing I do, okay?"

"No, it's not okay." Cavendish sighed. "We're partners, Dakota." The older man said in a quieter, worn down voice that did not suit him at all. "I would like to think that we're comfortable enough around each other to _talk_ about these things."

"Talk about what?" Dakota asked, because he still didn't get it. Why did Cavendish sound so guilty, like he had been doing something seriously wrong? He hadn't done anything. This was just an issue that Dakota was dealing with, and it wasn't even that big of a deal. So what if he stopped for snacks in the middle of missions? It hadn't ruined anything yet...had it?

Cavendish was quiet for a moment as he tried to find the right words to say. "You say that you eat when you're stressed, and I've noticed how often you've stopped for food at the most inappropriate times, but I never realized how much stress you had been dealing with." Cavendish just sounded so guilty, as though he _should_ have recognized that his partner was feeling stressed. The thing was, Dakota had been _trying_ to hide it from him. He wasn't supposed to have known.

"It's not that bad." Dakota insisted, because, to him, it really wasn't. He just needed a snack or two every once and awhile to be able to handle things. It wasn't like he was completely relying on food as some kind of emotional crutch or something...right?

"Dakota, there are better ways to deal with this sort of thing." Cavendish said.

"Really?" Dakota crossed his arms and glared at his partner, though his glare did lack the heat that he meant it to have. "Like what?"

"...We could talk about it?" Cavendish suggested, though he sounded extremely unsure. Dakota blinked.

"Talk about it?" Dakota hadn't even considered that, and there was a reason why. "We don't talk about stuff like this." They weren't a couple of high school girls. Neither of them had the habit of talking about their feelings, and Dakota didn't really plan on starting any time soon.

"Well, maybe we should start." Cavendish said stubbornly. "If it will keep you from staying up all night and eating all the food in the apartment because you don't know how else to handle your own emotions, then I think it's worth a shot." Dakota frowned and looked at the ground. He really didn't want to talk about this. He felt a firm hand on his shoulder and looked up at his partner, who wasn't bothering to hide his concern.

"Dakota," Cavendish began in a quiet voice. "Will you talk to me about what's going through that head of yours?"

Dakota sighed. "I just...can't stop thinking about how close those kids were to getting seriously hurt."

"The children?" Cavendish's eyes widened. "Dakota, they're just fine. It won't do anybody any good to worry about what _might_ have happened."

"I know." Dakota said. "We got real lucky, but what if we don't next time?"

"How do you know there will be a next time?" Cavendish asked.

"How do you know that there _won't_ be?" Dakota countered. "We're always running into Milo, and if things just go badly all over again...I just...I don't want anything to happen to that kid."

Cavendish was quiet for a moment. "Well, if things go badly, which I highly doubt will happen, then we'll just do what we can to keep the boy safe." Cavendish thought for another moment before continuing. "Although, I'm not if Murphy will _ever_ be completely safe, what, with Murphy's law following him everywhere."

Dakota chuckled slightly. "Yeah, the kid seems to have an exciting life."

"And he seems to know how to take care of himself." Cavendish reminded him.

"I guess so." Dakota shrugged. "I'm just worrying for nothing, I guess."

"It's not for nothing." Cavendish disagreed. "...But, you know, if you worry about these sorts of things a lot, I'm always right here to talk. I mean, if you want to."

Dakota gave his partner a small smile. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Thank you." Cavendish said, as if Dakota was doing him a favor by accepting his offer. The older man got to his feet. "Well, it's getting rather late, and I don't know about you but _I'm_ rather exhausted."

"Yeah, it's been a long and weird day." Dakota agreed. "I mean, longer and weirder than normal."

"Indeed." Cavendish nodded. "So, I think I'll be going back to bed now." Cavendish looked at Dakota in such a way that said ' _I'm going to take my eyes off you now. I hope you don't just go back to your food escape'._ And Dakota didn't think he would.

"Yeah, I think I'll do the same." Dakota said. He tried to ignore the relieved look in his partner's eyes. He still thought that Cavendish was overreacting, but it felt kinda nice that his partner was worried about him.

As the two of them passed by the kitchen to get to the only bedroom in the apartment, Dakota realized that he didn't really crave those cookies as much as he had before. He still kinda wanted them (who didn't want cookies?) but he didn't feel like he _needed_ them.

(He still really wanted the cookies though. But he knew that if he went to go get them right then, then Cavendish would be really disappointed, and Dakota didn't want that. So he could wait until later.)

Dakota didn't know if this whole conversation idea of Cavendish's was going to work, but he might as well give it a shot, just to make his partner feel better. Hejust hoped the future conversations would feel less awkward than this one did, because he knew that Cavendish wasn't just going to let him deal with these things by himself anymore.

As he was trying to fall asleep Dakota wondered what their mission tomorrow would be, and if they would have some extra time to check on the pistachio plant in the middle school courtyard, just to make _sure_ that it was dead. Or maybe they could see how Milo and his friends were doing. That would be nice.

Actually, once Dakota started thinking about it he began to wonder if they could just _not_ do their pistachio mission tomorrow. After all, there would always be another one the next day. And even if their boss didn't know it, they had saved the world. Dakota thought that they had earned a day off. If Mr. Block didn't agree...well, who said anybody would have to tell him?

Oh, who was he kidding? Cavendish would _definitely_ tell Mr. Block...unless he didn't know himself.

Dakota's last thoughts before he fell asleep were about whether or not there was a way he could trick his partner into taking a day off without realizing that they were taking a day off...hm, maybe Milo had an idea about how to make that happen.

Dakota would just have to ask him in the morning. It would at least give him a reason to see Milo again.

(Dakota really liked that kid.)

* * *

 **A/N: I'm just going to stop writing this now while I'm ahead. I had almost forgotten how awkward and difficult endings could be to write. This whole thing just ended up going in an entirely different direction than I meant it to go, but that's what I get for rewatching the episode and catching a small detail that I had missed the first time through. So, yeah, if the story's a little sloppy, that's why. I hope you enjoyed it anyways.**


End file.
